


Traces

by a_big_apple



Series: The City Holds Together [5]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Brothers, Feelings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-03
Updated: 2010-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-09 03:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7784383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_big_apple/pseuds/a_big_apple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for my first October 3rd in the fandom.  Ed and Al visit home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traces

It’s a little easier to remember the proportions of the house, now that his own proportions are back to normal.  He’s a little bigger than he was the last time his flesh set foot on this ground, but the change is not so drastic, he doesn’t tower like a mountain over the threshold, where he knows the threshold must’ve been, even though it’s become obscured by weedy growth.    
  
It rained yesterday, and his shoes and the end of his crutch sink and squelch in the almost-mud as he traces out a route through the rooms, as though the walls are still there, because stepping through air where wood and paint and memories once were just feels wrong.  In their bedroom, he remembers Mom’s goodnight kiss and Ed’s warm limbs next to him when one of them inevitably crawls into the other’s bed.   In the kitchen, he remembers Ed scowling at his glass of milk, Dad’s glasses steaming up a little as he drinks his tea, Mom humming an idle tune he thought nothing of at the time, though now it haunts him and trickles through his mind at odd moments.  
  
He stands for a long moment in the last spot his flesh remembers, just on the edge of the transmutation circle.  Of course, there’s nothing of the circle left, nothing of the blood and darkness but a dotting of mushrooms, but the weight of what isn’t there presses down on him until he sinks carefully to the ground, planting himself cross-legged on the wet ground.  He can’t bring himself to touch where he knows the edge of the circle was, so he outlines it with an eye, tracing its arc, smelling the chalk and hearing the scrape of it on the floor.  
  
He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there when a voice cuts through the haze of the past.  “Knock knock,” it says, and the memories clear from his eyes when he looks up, finds Ed standing in what was the doorway with hands in his pockets.  “You’re gonna catch a cold sitting in the mud like that.”    
  
Al just smiles.  Ed steps in, walks around the edge of the circle as though he can’t bear to touch it either, lays a warm hand on Al’s head to ruffle his hair.  “C’mon, dinner’s is probably ready by now.”  
  
Al tips a bit to the side, lays his cheek against Ed’s left knee.  He can feel the cold of it, beneath the slightly scratchy wool of trousers, but Ed just keeps scritching his fingers lightly through Al’s hair.  He sighs, quiet and slow, attentive to the movement of his lungs and the path of the air and marveling at it.  Then he lets Ed help him to his feet, and when he finds them both numbed and asleep, he lets Ed hike him onto his back like a little boy.  He rests his chin on Ed’s shoulder, watching quietly as his brother’s feet trace the route out of the room, down the hallway, out of the house.  Ed doesn’t walk through walls, either.  
  
“Thank you, Brother,” he murmurs.  Ed just jogs him higher, adjusts his grip on Al’s prickling legs, sets off along the path back home—but Al can feel the little movement of Ed’s cheek against his own, rising into a smile.


End file.
